Slavery and Sectionalism: The Political Crisis of 1848-1861

Chapter 12

A House Divided Chapter 12.4

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and John Brown’s Raid • In the midterm elections of 1858, Abraham Lincoln challenged Senator

Stephen Douglas to a series of debates in the election for Illinois’ Senate seat. • In the debates Lincoln and Douglas debated the fate of slavery, the legal and social

status of African Americans, and the viability of popular sovereignty in the wake of Bleeding Kansas and Dred Scott.

• The debates propelled Lincoln to national fame and forced Douglas to make unpopular statements that could be used against him in the election of 1860

• Around the same time, an ardent abolitionist, John Brown, plotted an invasion of the South to instigate a widespread slave revolt. • John Brown’s Raid began in the summer of 1859. Brown led 17 whites and 5 blacks in

an attack on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia hoping to gain weapons and munitions to arm a large slave insurrection. Brown was captured by U.S. marines, put on trial in Virginia, and executed for treason.

• As news spread through the north and south, northerners were outraged at the treatment and called Brown a martyr of freedom. Southerners were convinced that northerners would stop at nothing to destroy slavery.

The Election of 1860

• While Democrats were able to weather the sectional divisions that had disintegrated the Whig party leading up to the election of 1860, the presidential nomination in that election proved the breaking point • Democrats split into northern and southern factions nominating two regional candidates

for the presidency Douglas in the north and John Breckinridge in the south.

• A third party formed out of the ranks of former Whigs and the Know-Nothings known as the Constitutional Union Party which nominated John Bell of Tennessee as a moderate candidate.

• Republicans decided to nominate Abraham Lincoln, who was more moderate on the issue of slavery than the controversial William Seward.

• As a result of the split in the Democratic party and the emergence of a strong third party – the Republican nominee, Abraham Lincoln, won the election having only won northern states.

Secession

• Feeling Lincoln would attack the institution of slavery, South Carolina immediately called a convention to secede from the Union. Other southern states quickly followed.

• A final attempt at reconciliation commenced in Congress with the Crittenden Compromise which proposed Constitutional Amendments to protect slavery.

• Ultimately compromise failed and when Lincoln took office, he vowed to protect federal property in the south and maintain the Union of States.

• When Lincoln attempted to resupply the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina Confederate leaders ordered a military attack on the Fort.

• Lincoln declared the South to be in a state of open “insurrection” and the Civil War had begun.

Questions:

• Why did many Northerners consider John Brown a martyr?

• What was unique about Lincoln’s victory in the election of 1860?

• What was the role of slavery in the outbreak of the American Civil War?